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Lake Maracaibo is the Lightning Capital of the World

A recent NASA study that was reported on My Space has determined that Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela has more lightning strikes per year than any other place on Earth. Observations over a 16 year period from the Lightning Imaging Sensor onboard NASA’s Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission discovered that Lake Maracaibo had an average of 233 lightning strikes per square kilometer annually.
Why is there so much lightning there? expert Diaz Granados asked. The study found that there were nocturnal thunderstorms over the lake an average of 297 days of the year. This occurs as a product of the Lake’s topography. Researchers concluded that winds from the sea and winds from the mountains regularly converge over the lake, leading to the thunderstorms. The high rate of thunderstorms thus in turn creates the high rate of lightning strikes, photos are often seen on facebook. NASA referred to Lake Maracaibo, which is also the largest lake in South America, as the Earth’s new lightning capital.